11th Cir. Oral Argument in Ben Kuehne Money Laundering Case

Ben Kuehne, as I've written before, is a leading criminal defense lawyer in Miami. The Government charged him with money laundering and related crimes. He moved to dismiss arguing the exception in 18 USC Section 1957 prevents the government from indicting a criminal defense lawyer for taking payment from a client. The district court agreed and dismissed the count. The Government appealed. The trial court's order is here(pdf).

Oral arguments were this morning and David Markus at the SDFla blog has an excellent recap. While one can never predict how an appellate court will rule from oral arguments, it appears the panel was all over the Government and favorable to Ben's position. David thinks the court will uphold the dismissal.